Upgrading to SSD

primuspaul · 10 Oct 2015

I wanted to upgrade to an SSD. Prior to this, I had 2 HDDs in the computer.

HDD1, Partition 1: system partition
HDD1, Partition 2: storage partition
HDD2, Partition 1: an old Vista installation. I no longer use this HD except as storage.

I thought I would take out HDD2, install the SSD, copy Partition 1 from HDD1 to the SSD and all would work. Well, first problem I had was removing HDD2 rendered my OS unbootable. Reconnecting it made the computer work again and that is how I am talking to you. Working with the SSD, I tried everything, Windows recovery, other recovery tools that work with windows, FixMbr followed by FixBoot, all I get with that SSD is bootmgr is missing. How do I fix this?

Layback Bear · 10 Oct 2015

If it was my computer I would unhook all drives and then install the SSD.
Then do a clean install on the SSD using this tutorial.

Clean Install Windows 7

Then I would hook up HDD-1 and make sure the system still booted and you can see the data on the partitions.
Then hook up HDD-2 and wipe it, format it and use as storage.

Then I would do clean install on the SSD of the programs I wanted to use.

primuspaul · 11 Oct 2015

I figured part of the problem out. The boot files were on the second drive and were used to boot into the first drive. EasyBCD fixed this by moving the files to the correct HD. Now at least the old HD boots on its own. I now have a problem with the copied partition giving an error (different one) on boot. Seems to be because of some hidden boot partition Windows 7 places right before the real partition (nothing can be simple in Windows).

The solution seems to be to use Clonezilla to fully clone the entire drive. So I'm moving files out of the old drive to make it small enough to fit on the SSD.

AddRAM · 11 Oct 2015

Post a shot of Disk Management if you want, we`ll advise you further.

primuspaul · 11 Oct 2015

I fixed it. The trick was to do the following:

1. Create an adequately-sized ntfs partition on the new drive using Gparted's basic GUI partition tool (the one on the desktop of UBCD).
2. Clonezilla: device-device, partition to partition clone from the original drive system partition to the new ntfs partition. Use default settings, except for partition table, use -k1.
3. Once done, go back to the Gparted GUI partition editor and add the bootable flag to the new partition.
4. Boot to the new drive, ALLOW the diskchecker to run, and in Windows allow any drivers to be installed.
5. Reboot and it should work.

This is after I used EasyBCD on the original drive to ensure the system and bootmgr were on the same drive.

This is based on these instructions:
https://arga.wordpress.com/2010/04/2...th-clonezilla/

Except I did NOT check "do not clone bootloader." In that case, you might have to use the Windows rescue disk and you might get different results.

Another point: If you boot using the new drive while the old drive is plugged in, you may get a blue screen. This is because of signature collision. Deleting all partitions on the old drive and creating a new one does not cure this. The only cure appears to be to boot into Windows on the new drive with the old drive unplugged, plug in (hot plug) the old drive after Windows is loaded, go to storage management, and then "online" the drive. Note that this will cause all data to be lost on the old drive! But it seems to be the only way to safely use that drive again.